Monday, July 29, 2013

Michaels has some fun Halloween headbands and witch hats this year! Shown above and below 4 of the headband styles--there are others too - I like the one above and you could embelish it with some skulls or pumpkins or a raven! There are some with spiders and then witch hat ones. Then below those are 2 full size witch hats and they had several styles of these. They would be fun for costumes for Halloween! Even a black dress paired with these accessories would be bewitching this year ;-)

Monday, July 22, 2013

We've got dozens of sets of extra beads and charms and fun items that can be used in crafting or making charms out of - so much so, we're sharing our extras with you! You can find a lot of these sets in The Vintage Halloween Store - good for scrapbooking or paper crafting too in addition to jewelry making!

Thursday, July 18, 2013

I met Todd Shelby and Karen Pritchett at their Animalia booth quite a few years ago in Albuquerque, NM at Weem's Artfest and fell in love with their pottery--it's fun, bright, and quirky and really makes a festive statement.

Here's a little Q & A with Todd and Karen to introduce them to you:

VH: How did you both become interested in pottery?

TS: We met at Berea College in Berea, Kentucky. This is a tuition free liberal arts college for poor Appalachian kids who work ten hours a week on campus. Karen and I both eventually worked at the Berea College Pottery making traditional stoneware. It was after graduation that we concentrated more on color and surface design which led to our current work.

VH: What defines your style?

TS: Our style is quirky, colorful, whimsical and definitely formed by time spent in New Mexico the last twenty years.

VH: Tell us what inspires you to create?

TS: I think we're lucky to have been able to work full time as artists for twenty five years... Inspiration comes from the world around us, a consistent urge to work with our hands, momentum from past creative endeavors, and a visual vocabulary that we continue to build. We've also learned to keep working even when inspiration eludes us.

VH: Favorite Halloween memory from childhood?

KP: My older sister was obsessed with Barnabas Collins from the television show "Dark Shadows". Our bedroom walls were decorated with drawings and paintings of vampires and bedtime stories were always ghost stories... I guess my Halloween memories are really memories of my sister Janie and the creativity and coziness of those dark chilly nights.

TS: I was probably 5 years old, living in Alabama, and Halloween was so stormy with rain, wind and lightning that my parents reinvented trick-or-treating. They stood behind each door in our house, opening after our knock and pretending to be different neighbors. "Is this the Shelby children?" they would ask while giving us candy and admiring our costumes.

Sunday, July 14, 2013

Our local Garden Ridge store (like a massive home/garden/decor place on the scale of Home Depot - huge!), has just started putting out their Halloween stuff. I snapped a few photos and will check back soon for more.

These containers were not in the Halloween area, but with the spooky tree silhouette theme, they'd be perfect for your eerie arrangements :)

Friday, July 12, 2013

My Hobby Lobby doesn't have out Halloween just yet but they do have out the fall stuff. I snapped a few pictures of things that will work for Halloween like these pumpkins above and these crows/ravens below. I bought a couple of these ravens below last year and keep them out on display.

They have black funkins and also in the metal/lanterns area, they had this cute owl lantern that would work well for Halloween and fall.

Wednesday, July 10, 2013

I stopped by my Michaels today and they didn't have much of their Halloween out yet--some fall foliage and just a few items on an end cap shown above as well as ribbon.

However, I was checking out their garden & summer lines clearance stuff and found some neat stuff in black and orange and also white that could be used in your decorating - at 60% or more off too! Here's some ideas:

These black vases and black and white items would be fun to make arrangements with. They also had some summer clearance in orange and I picked up one of the black vases and also these orange baskets and the "picnic" utensils basket to use at my Halloween party this year:

The orange baskets are really neat--all metal too--plan on putting loot bags and other take-aways in these. They also had black/white polka dot plastic trays and plates which would be fun for Halloween.

These were not on clearance but the hobnail style ones would be fun to use as vases: